Abstract
A Tepary bean lectin fraction (TBLF) has been studied because it exhibits differential cytotoxic and anticancer effects on colon cancer. The present work focuses on the evaluation of the apoptotic mechanism of action on colon cancer cells. Initially, lethal concentrations (LC50) were obtained for the three studied cell lines (HT-29, RKO and SW-480). HT-29 showed the highest LC50, 10 and 100 times higher than that of RKO and SW-480 cells, respectively. Apoptosis was evaluated by flow cytometry, where HT-29 cells showed the highest levels of early and total apoptosis, caspases activity was confirmed and necrosis was discarded. The effect on cell cycle arrest was shown in the G0/G1 phase. Specific apoptosis-related gene expression was determined, where an increase in p53 and a decrease in Bcl-2 were observed. Expression of p53 gene showed the maximum level at 8 h with an important decrease at 12 and 24 h, also the phosphorylated p53(ser46) increased at 8 h. Our results show that TBLF induces apoptosis in colon cancer cells by p-p53(ser46) involvement. Further studies will focus on studying the specific signal transduction pathway.
Highlights
The development of new therapies against colon cancer is gaining great importance in the research of natural products
Concentration-response curves were obtained for each cell line, the Tepary bean lectin fraction (TBLF)-LC50 values were were for each the TBLF-LC
Our results suggest that TBLF is able to recognize cancer cells in a differential manner, provoking results suggest that TBLF is able to recognize cancer cells in a differential manner, provoking specific specific cytotoxic effects, even in cells derived from the same pathology
Summary
The development of new therapies against colon cancer is gaining great importance in the research of natural products. Among plant compounds that have been studied because of their anticancer effects, lectins are being strongly considered. They are glycoproteins with the ability to recognize specific cell membrane carbohydrates [1,2]. Some plant lectins have shown differential cytotoxic effects on cancer cell lines given the specific changes in cell membrane glycosylation patterns [3,4]. The cytotoxic effects of plant lectins on cancer cell lines are related to their high specificity to cell membrane carbohydrates [5]. The specificity on different tumor cell lines could reflect different progression stages [6]
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